Footnotes on Life

Life just now is like the three day moon not nothing nor everything a portion of light destined to expand and contract shadows of responsibility dominate the landscapes Occasionally there will come a break in the clouds so the whole surface floods with light and all...

Wellbeing is all well and good. I totally believe in it. Even when finding ten minutes seems almost impossible what with working, mothering, house-hold running. Especially all the different kinds of 'just take ten minutes to...' activities that are recommended across...

Sometimes you have to write something and at that exact moment, the only reason you write it is for yourself. Sometimes it just pushes out of you, like a birth, a force which will not be contained. And then when you see the words scribbled out like that, you see what...

Since first viewing on TV in 2021, I have been captivated by the Earthshot concept and all it contains and pertains to. In 2022 I watched the prizes awarded for the second year. Now I have the book. I am yet to finish it. https://earthshotprize.org/ And of course...

You may find the term 'puddling' somewhat puzzling. And I'd be with you there, as it's the clunky translation for the French term 'Flacking', which itself emerged in 2016 to describe the covert art form of repairing potholes with creative mosaics. The work of French...

empty chair everyone skirted beautifully around what was his chair choosing the garden seat instead, brought into the lounge for the mourners a respectful honouring of his cosy corner his much -loved place yet she, child with the innocent eyes flung herself freely...

September, dearest of months, tell me if you know. How come you no longer stretch like you used to? Back along you spread out like jam, offering heady memories of endless bounties amongst the hedgerows. You gave us an eternity to gather them. Nowadays September...

I only visit now places you live where there are no bodyguards I only go now to open spaces where there are no doors, to be shown and closed. I circumvent round the gatekeepers who patrol like circling birds of prey watching with piercing eyes for signs of dissent or...

Those are the trees of a hundred years. Here, the remarkable riverbank, which tells me all I need to know. If I look I can see that it is very true that some parts of what make up the world only ever change very slowly. Some things, like ancient oaks, are dependable,...

In water, the body and soul take on other properties. Morphing, moving differently, belonging to no one, having everything belong to you. If only for brief transitory periods of time. But if you can find enough of those times, of being nobody, just a tiny moving...

I watched recently how an artist creates a painting. All that was there at first was the faintest of sketches, on a blank canvas. Our biographies are a bit like this. The first lines drawn, the first markers of what makes up a life. But then the layers come. Great...

When facing forward we can trust two things: that the earth will be there to catch us whenever it is we dare to take our next step; and that the road will continue to wind out of sight, until some day we will each return our borrowed stardust to the universe. I took...